But when Mr. Lansdell walked slowly homeward after such a visit as this, there was generally a dissatisfied look upon his face, which was altogether inconsistent with the pleasure he had appeared to take in his wasted hour at Graybridge. He was inconsistent. It was in his nature, as a hero, to be so, no doubt. There were times when he forgot all about that yawning chasm of years which was supposed to divide him from any possibility of sympathy with Isabel Gilbert; there were times when he forgot himself so far as to be very young and happy in his loitering visits at Graybridge, playing idle scraps of extempore melody on the wizen old harpsichord, sketching little bunches of foliage and frail Italian temples, and pretty girlish faces with big black eyes, not altogether unlike Isabel's, or strolling out into the flat old-fashioned garden, where Mr. Jeffson lolled on his spade, and made a rustic figure of himself, between a middle distance of brown earth and a foreground of cabbage-plants. I am bound to say that Mr. Jeffson, who was generally courtesy itself to every living creature, from the pigs to whom he carried savoury messes of skim-milk and specky potatoes, to the rector of Graybridge, who gave him "good evening" sometimes as he reposed himself in the cool twilight, upon the wooden gate leading into George Gilbert's stable-yard,--I am bound to say that Mr. Jeffson was altogether wanting in politeness to Roland Lansdell, and was apt to follow the young man with black and evil looks as he strolled by Izzie's side along the narrow walks, or stooped now and then to extricate her muslin dress from the thorny branches of a gooseberry-bush. Once, and once only, did Isabel Gilbert venture to remonstrate with her husband's retainer on the subject of his surly manner to the master of Mordred Priory. Her remonstrance was a very faint one, and she was stooping over a rose-bush while she talked, and was very busy plucking off the withered leaves, and now and then leaves that were not withered. "I am afraid you don't like Mr. Lansdell, Jeff," she said. She had been very much attached to the gardener, and very confidential to him, before Roland's advent, and had done a little amateur gardening under his instructions, and had told him all about Eugene Aram and the murder of Mr. Clarke "You seemed quite cross to him this morning when he called to see George, and to inquire about the man that had the rheumatic fever; I'm afraid you don't like him."